Sorrow and sophistry as the war ends (for now)

Nine years ago the prime minister's mantra was "education, education, education". Yesterday he returned to his political roots at a school in north London. Here the slogan had changed to "resignation, resignation, resignation".

Except of course he didn't quite resign. Instead he revealed a tiny bit more yesterday than he had done the day before. Mr Blair resembles a strip-tease dancer who arrives onstage to loud applause, then coquettishly removes one woolly mitten.

Outside the school, Quintin Kynaston in St John's Wood, there was chaos. Six satellite trucks were waiting. A body known as School Students Against War had gathered a large crowd of pupils to protest. The SSAW members looked suspiciously above the age of 30 to me. A deputy head wandered about, trying to persuade the children to go home. He had a walkie-talkie and a badge. In my day deputy heads had pipes and leather patches on their elbows. This guy looked like a bouncer. "Tony, Tony, Tony, Out, Out, Out!" the children shouted, and who can blame them, because what could be more fun than a demonstration in front of the TV cameras?

The police began to lose it. You might have thought it was Orgreave coking plant, and they were facing hundreds of angry miners. Bit by bit they cajoled, ordered and forced the children down the road, out of the prime ministerial sightline. Security fences crashed to the ground. The chanting redoubled. Someone hoisted a giant brown paper bone, marked "A Bonio For Tonio The Poodle".

The security fences came from a company called Eve Trakway (I see Eve as a Charlie's Angels figure - "your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to keep the public far, far away from the premier.") One of the men heaving the steel fences - they boast a "24-Hour Barrier Hotline" in case Tony needs protection from the voters at 3 am - revealed that the call had come on Wednesday night for a 20-fence job. "This morning they rang again and said they needed 40."

Even with a wobbly ring of steel now in place, things began to heave ominously. The police tried to keep apart schoolchildren, teachers, cameramen, wispy beards and members of the public. At one point four men in suits and ties were braving the tumult and broadcasting live. "So - when precisely will he go?" asked one of them. Silly question - when Songs Of Praise has a slot free, of course.

Was this the "stable and orderly transition" we have heard so much about? By this time the prime minster hadn't even arrived. Some children broke away to say they really liked the school (Mr Blair was ostensibly there because it has "pathway status," whatever that means.) "You can have a big slice of pizza for only 80p," a little girl said. Jamie Oliver has not made it to St John's Wood yet.

Suddenly the outriders roared down the road, and the motorcade arrived. School trusties had been assembled at the main door. They smiled warmly. Their disaffected schoolmates, behind the Met's cordon sanitaire, began baying and booing (the new 3 R's: Railing, Ranting and Reviling). The prime minister, the only man I know who can look tense and relaxed at the same time, clambered out and disappeared into the school.

Half an hour later three boys aged around 12 emerged clutching chocolate biscuits. Had he said anything? we asked. "Nah", they said, spraying chocolatey crumbs. So we learned what he'd said by the traditional journalist's technique of watching it later on television. Apparently he said virtually nothing, beyond the fact that he would not be at the TUC conference in September next year. Lucky bloke.

Then the motorcade pulled away, Mr Blair on the side away from the demonstrators, as he glided back to Downing Street to continue his hectic schedule of not resigning.